List of United States presidential assassination attempts and plots

Theodore Roosevelt (1912, by John Schrank) and Donald Trump (2024, by Thomas Matthew Crooks) are the only two former presidents to be injured in an assassination attempt, both while campaigning for reelection.

Historian James W. Clarke suggests that most assassination attempters have been sane and politically motivated,[1] whereas the Department of Justice's legal manual claims that a large majority have been insane.

[6] In 1864, Booth formulated a plan (very similar to one of Thomas N. Conrad previously authorized by the Confederacy)[7] to kidnap Lincoln in exchange for the release of Confederate prisoners.

After attending an April 11, 1865 speech in which Lincoln promoted voting rights for Black people, Booth decided to assassinate the president instead.

"[18][13] Field wrote in a letter to The New York Times: "there was 'no apparent suffering, no convulsive action, no rattling of the throat...[only] a mere cessation of breathing'...

After being on the run for 12 days, Booth was tracked down and found on April 26, 1865, by Union Army soldiers at a farm in Virginia, some 70 miles (110 km) south of Washington.

The assassination of James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, took place at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C., at 9:20 AM on Saturday, July 2, 1881, less than four months after he took office.

[22] For the next eleven weeks, Garfield endured the pain and suffering from having been shot, before dying on September 19, 1881, at 10:35 PM, of complications caused by iatrogenic infections, which were contracted by the doctors' relentless probing of his wound with unsterilized fingers and instruments.

The assassination of United States president William McKinley took place at 4:07 PM on Friday, September 6, 1901, at the Temple of Music in Buffalo, New York.

McKinley, attending the Pan-American Exposition, was shot twice in the abdomen at close range by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist, who was armed with a .32-caliber Iver Johnson "Safety Automatic" revolver that was concealed underneath a handkerchief.

Afterward, the 4th Brigade, National Guard Signal Corps, and police intervened, beating Czolgosz so severely it was initially thought he might not live to stand trial.

The assassination of United States president John F. Kennedy took place at 12:30 PM on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, during a presidential motorcade in Dealey Plaza.

[27] Governor Connally was seriously wounded, and bystander James Tague received a minor facial injury from a small piece of curbstone that had fragmented after it was struck by one of the bullets.

Reagan was seriously wounded by a bullet that ricocheted off the side of the presidential limousine and hit him in the left underarm, breaking a rib, puncturing a lung, and causing serious internal bleeding.

[31] Besides Reagan, White House press secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy, and police officer Thomas Delahanty were also wounded.

[33][34] Three-and-a-half years after he left office, Theodore Roosevelt ran in the 1912 presidential election as a member of the Bull Moose Party.

While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 14, 1912, John Schrank, a saloon-keeper from New York who had been stalking him for weeks, shot Roosevelt once in the chest with a .38-caliber Colt Police Positive Special.

The 50-page text of his campaign speech titled "Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual", folded over twice in Roosevelt's breast pocket, and a metal glasses case slowed the bullet, saving his life.

[36] Roosevelt, as an experienced hunter and anatomist, correctly concluded that since he was not coughing blood, the bullet had not reached his lung, and he declined suggestions to go to the hospital immediately.

His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.

Doctors concluded that it would be less dangerous to leave it in place than to attempt to remove it, and the bullet remained in Roosevelt's body for the remainder of his life.

[45] On July 13, 2024, Donald Trump, former president of the United States and the Republican Party's presumptive nominee in the 2024 presidential election, was shot by a bullet wounding his right ear while addressing a campaign rally near Butler, Pennsylvania.

[46] Shortly after Trump began addressing the rally, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks fired eight rounds with an AR-15–style rifle from the roof of a building located around 400 feet (120 meters) from the stage.

[49] Video of the incident showed Trump clasping his right ear before taking cover on the floor of the podium, where he was shielded by Secret Service personnel.

Photojournalist Evan Vucci of the Associated Press captured images of a bloodied Trump pumping his fist in the air, with an American flag in the background, which went viral on social media and were widely praised as iconic and historically significant.

[153] In 1991 a neutron activation analysis conducted on samples of Taylor's remains found no evidence of poisonings due to insufficient levels of arsenic.

[155][156] In June 1923, President Warren G. Harding set out on a cross-country Voyage of Understanding, planning to meet with citizens and explain his policies.